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List:       kde-devel
Subject:    Multiple KDE setups
From:       Kurt Granroth <granroth () alpha ! tat ! physik ! uni-tuebingen ! de>
Date:       1999-04-29 2:45:55
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The Problem
-----------
It occurs to me that there is no easy way, currently, to have more than one
distinct user-level setup for KDE for one account.

My situation at work is that I tend to use up to 4 different computers -- all
with very different hardware requirements.  On my "main" workstation, I have a
nice big monitor (21") with a decent (24-bit) graphics card.  On most of the
other ones, the monitor is 19" with an 8-bit card.  This means that my very
cool looking desktop with all of it's high-color graphics looks and acts
*terrible* on some of the machines.

What would be *very* handy is a way to have multiple setups for my account.
That way, I could have my graphics intesive desktop for my main workstation
but still be able to use a more boring version for the other stations.

A Possible Solution
--------------------
Most, if not all, KDE apps use KApplication::localkdedir() as the base for
local configuration stuff.  This static function looks like so:

   return ( QDir::homeDirPath() + "/.kde" );

In other words, $HOME/.kde.

What if this was user settable?  If this was the case, then I could set the
local kde dir just before starting up KDE on each workstation and I would be
ensured that my special settings would hold only for that workstation.

Something like so could work:

   QString localdir(getenv("KDELOCALDIR"));
   if (localdir.isEmpty())
      return ( QDir::homeDirPath() + "/.kde" );
   else
      return ( localdir );

So I could have $HOME/.kde-hi and $HOME/.kde-lo and two setup scripts

   #!/bin/sh
   KDELOCALDIR=$HOME/.kde-hi startkde

Does this sound reasonable?
-- 
Kurt Granroth            | granroth@kde.org
KDE Developer/Evangelist | http://www.pobox.com/~kurt_granroth

        KDE -- Putting a Friendly Face on Linux

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